Watch Iron Maiden's Adrian Smith take on David Gilmour's iconic Comfortably Numb solo
The Iron Maiden man offers up his own take on the Pink Floyd classic in this off-the-cuff studio jam
We’ve seen everyone from Zakk Wylde to Judas Priest’s Richie Faulkner tackle David Gilmour’s lead in Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb.
Now it’s Iron Maiden electric guitar player Adrian Smith’s turn to take a whack at what Guitar World ranked as the fourth greatest guitar solo in history.
The above video was filmed last year, and shows Smith, with his signature Jackson, tackling the famous solo - with plenty of improvisation thrown in - at RnR Studios in London.
Smith also recently announced the release of a fishing memoir, Monsters of River & Rock: My Life as Iron Maiden’s Compulsive Angler.
The new book chronicles adventures ranging from “his first sturgeon, a whopping 100-pounder from Canada's swirling Fraser River that nearly wiped him out mid-Maiden tour, to a close shave with a large shark off the Virgin Islands whilst wading waist-deep for bonefish.”
It’s out in September, though given Smith’s impressive Comfortably Numb performance, we suggest he give this guitar thing a shot as well.
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Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.

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